> they basically completely commodify the experience of love and turn relationships into a purely aesthetics based thing
I think this is the right thing to do. Apps work great for a quick check of "does this person look cute and interesting."
They suck for everything else. I think it's great that apps like Tinder have given up on the pretense of helping people present their true deep selves, find compatible people, and figure out if there's a connection before they even meet. I know it seems more enlightened to deemphasize looks and concentrate on inner qualities, your personality and values and dreams, but over decades of painful experience we've learned that that stuff just doesn't convey accurately online. People invest huge amounts of energy creating profiles, answering quizzes, and trying to understand other people through their profiles and through online conversations, and the result are always disappointing.
By now I think we understand that failure well enough that when a company promises to do it well, we should call it a scam. It might work for a few people, but they're very rare and very lucky. Apps should be honest and stick to what they're really good at, which is helping people who mutually pass the superficial visual check find each other, on a scale they could never accomplish IRL, and facilitating them getting face to face so they can find out if they actually like each other.
Tinder does a perfect job of this. Just a few pics and a tiny profile. Put vital info in the profile (kids? open to what kind of relationship?) and some polarizing context in the pics (signals of political and cultural preferences, whatever feels important to you.) If someone wants to chat for more than a week without meeting you in person, unmatch them, because they're probably a bot or somebody just doing it to kill time. (Unless they say hey, let's put this on ice for a bit, I just met someone and if it doesn't work out I'd like to meet you next. That's valid.)
Paying to increase the attention you get is a scam, too, of course, and I won't defend any app doing it. It basically turns the app into a strip club where the women work for free and it's even easier for the men to delude themselves into thinking they'll get something out of it. Really if you aren't getting hits then all you can do is work on your profile or cast or wider net, or take a break for a month while you wait for new people to become active.